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It is 3:40 in the afternoon. I’m sitting at my kitchen table, sipping (decaf) coffee, considering sending an email that would drastically impact the start of the next decade… Wow that is a sentence! Why is it that talking about the New Year in that way makes it seem both ominous and glorious? ‘We are entering into a new decade!’, ‘2020 will change everything’… ‘It’s the end of an era’… ‘My vision is perfect, I’m seeing 2020’ (ok… dad joke… couldn’t help myself). But it’s true, there is something significant about that moment, just days from now, when earth rotates itself into a new decade. When the ball drops, fireworks explode, noise makers declare, and champagne corks proclaim our entrance into the new.
Where will you be? Who will you be with? Will you be awake?
That word, ‘awake’, isn’t just a state of being asleep in your bed, but rather a state of your BE-ing, being asleep; your mind, body, soul, hitting snooze. My friends, it is time to wake up. To quote the 1993 smash hit film Sister Act 2, featuring Whoopi Goldberg-
“If you want to be somebody, if you want to go somewhere, you better wake up and pay attention.”
This lyric has been ringing in my ears for weeks now. It is convicting is it not? Sure, in the movie Whoopi is trying to get a class of disruptive high school students to literally pay attention… but when you read it slowly and apply it to your own life, it takes on a much bigger meaning (or maybe thats just me). But ask yourself-
Who do I want to be? I am the person I want to be?
Am I where I want to be? If not, where do I want to go?
Am I awake and present in my life?
Am I paying attention? To my life? To people around me? To my calling and purpose?
When I answer those questions the fear gripping my chest dissipates. When I answer those questions the worry over “should I or shouldn’t I send that email” subsides (mostly), because I see a greater ‘somewhere’ in my future and in order to get there I need to wake up and pay attention to the call on my life.
Here’s the thing- I am bound to fall on my face and get things wrong. I will fail, I will mess up, and I will probably cry about it (I’m practically my mother these days, crying over commercials… not literally, but you catch my drift). The question then becomes, are the person I want to be, and where I want to go worth the scrapes and bruises along the way? And I would say yes.
All of life is your teacher. What can you learn when you fail? When you fall? Fall enough and, in time, you will find really creative ways to get back up again (trust me).
So check in with yourself. Are you awake or only dreaming?
Waking up is no small thing. I once told a coach of mine that I felt like my 'asleep’ self was clinging onto the covers for dear life and screaming “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” inside, she was very afraid to wake up. All of life had taught me it was safer to be numb and asleep. But, my friends, waking up is worth it, even on the days that feel less than spectacular (today being one of them), I still wouldn’t trade it for the world.
In grace and peace.
xx
*Image from a very awake moment, walking the beach in Cabo having deep, rich, soul conversations with a dear friend… I will never forget the sound of the ocean, the rain hitting my skin, the salt water rushing over my feet… it was magic.
